It surprises one to find among the literary Italians the merits of
Ariosto most keenly disputed: slaves to classical authority, they bend
down to the majestic regularity of Tasso. Yet the father of Tasso,
before his son had rivalled the romantic Ariosto, describes in a letter
the effect of the "Orlando" on the people:--"There is no man of
learning, no mechanic, no lad, no girl, no old man, who is satisfied to
read the 'Orlando Furioso' once. This poem serves as the solace of the
traveller, who fatigued on his journey deceives his lassitude by
chanting some octaves of this poem. You may hear them sing these stanzas
in the streets and in the fields every day." One would have expected
that Ariosto would have been the favourite of the people, and Tasso of
the critics. But in Venice the gondoliers, and others, sing passages
which are generally taken from Tasso, and rarely from Ariosto. A
different fate, I imagined, would have attended the poet who has been
distinguished by the epithet of "_The Divine_." I have been told by an
Italian man of letters, that this circumstance arose from the relation
which Tasso's poem bears to Turkish affairs; as many of the common
people have passed into Turkey either by chance or by war. Besides, the
long antipathy existing between the Venetians and the Turks gave
additional force to the patriotic poetry of Tasso. We cannot boast of
any similar poems. Thus it was that the people of Greece and Ionia sang
the poems of Homer.
The Accademia della Crusca gave a public preference to Ariosto. This
irritated certain critics, and none more than Chapelain, who could
_taste_ the regularity of Tasso, but not _feel_ the "brave disorder" of
Ariosto. He could not approve of those writers,
Who snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
"I thank you," he writes, "for the sonnet which your indignation
dictated, at the Academy's preference of Ariosto to Tasso. This judgment
is overthrown by the confessions of many of the _Cruscanti_, my
associates. It would be tedious to enter into its discussion; but it was
passion and not equity that prompted that decision. We confess, that, as
to what concerns invention and purity of language, Ariosto has eminently
the advantage over Tasso; but majesty, pomp, numbers, and a style truly
sublime, united to regularity of design, raise the latter so much above
the other that no comparison can fairly exist."
The decision of Chapelain is not unjust; though I did not know that
Ariosto's language was purer than Tasso's.
Dr. Cocchi, the great Italian critic, compared "Ariosto's poem to the
richer kind of harlequin's habit, made up of pieces of the very best
silk, and of the liveliest colours. The parts of it are, many of them,
_more beautiful_ than in Tasso's poem, but the whole in Tasso is without
comparison more of a piece and better made." The critic was extricating
himself as safely as he could out of this critical dilemma; for the
disputes were then so violent, that I think one of the disputants took
to his bed, and was said to have died of Ariosto and Tasso.
It is the conceit of an Italian to give the name of _April_ to
_Ariosto_, because it is the season of _flowers_; and that of
_September_ to _Tasso_, which is that of _fruits_. Tiraboschi
judiciously observes that no comparison ought to be made between these
great rivals. It is comparing "Ovid's Metamorphoses" with "Virgil's
Æneid;" they are quite different things. In his characters of the two
poets, he distinguishes between a romantic poem and a regular epic.
Their designs required distinct perfections. But an English reader is
not enabled by the wretched versions of Hoole to echo the verse of La
Fontaine, "JE CHERIS L'Arioste et J'ESTIME le Tasse."
Boileau, some time before his death, was asked by a critic if he had
repented of his celebrated decision concerning the merits of Tasso,
which some Italians had compared with those of Virgil? Boileau had
hurled his bolts at these violators of classical majesty. It is supposed
that he was ignorant of the Italian language, but some expressions in
his answer may induce us to think that he was not.
"I have so little changed my opinion, that, on a _re-perusal_ lately of
Tasso, I was sorry that I had not more amply explained myself on this
subject in some of my reflections on 'Longinus.' I should have begun by
acknowledging that Tasso had a sublime genius, of great compass, with
happy dispositions for the higher poetry. But when I came to the use he
made of his talents, I should have shown that judicious discernment
rarely prevailed in his works. That in the greater portion of his
narrations he attached himself to the agreeable, oftener than to the
just. That his descriptions are almost always overcharged with
superfluous ornaments. That in painting the strongest passions, and in
the midst of the agitations they excite, frequently he degenerates into
witticisms, which abruptly destroy the pathetic. That he abounds with
images of too florid a kind; affected turns; conceits and frivolous
thoughts; which, far from being adapted to his Jerusalem, could hardly
be supportable in his 'Aminta.' So that all this, opposed to the
gravity, the sobriety, the majesty of Virgil, what is it but tinsel
compared with gold?"
The merits of Tasso seem here precisely discriminated; and this
criticism must be valuable to the lovers of poetry. The errors of Tasso
were national.
In Venice the gondoliers know by heart long passages from Ariosto and
Tasso, and often chant them with a peculiar melody. Goldoni, in his
life, notices the gondolier returning with him to the city: "He turned
the prow of the gondola towards the city, singing all the way the
twenty-sixth stanza of the sixteenth canto of the Jerusalem Delivered."
The late Mr. Barry once chanted to me a passage of Tasso in the manner
of the gondoliers; and I have listened to such from one who in his youth
had himself been a gondolier. An anonymous gentleman has greatly obliged
me with his account of the recitation of these poets by the gondoliers
of Venice.
There are always two concerned, who alternately sing the strophes. We
know the melody eventually by Rousseau, to whose songs it is printed; it
has properly no melodious movement, and is a sort of medium between the
canto fermo and the canto figurato; it approaches to the former by
recitativical declamation, and to the latter by passages and course, by
which one syllable is detained and embellished.
I entered a gondola by moonlight: one singer placed himself forwards,
and the other aft, and thus proceeded to Saint Giorgio. One began the
song: when he had ended his strophe the other took up the lay, and so
continued the song alternately. Throughout the whole of it, the same
notes invariably returned; but, according to the subject matter of the
strophe, they laid a greater or a smaller stress, sometimes on one, and
sometimes on another note, and indeed changed the enunciation of the
whole strophe, as the object of the poem altered.
On the whole, however, their sounds were hoarse and screaming: they
seemed, in the manner of all rude uncivilised men, to make the
excellency of their singing consist in the force of their voice: one
seemed desirous of conquering the other by the strength of his lungs,
and so far from receiving delight from this scene (shut up as I was in
the box of the gondola), I found myself in a very unpleasant situation.
My companion, to whom I communicated this circumstance, being very
desirous to keep up the credit of his countrymen, assured me that this
singing was very delightful when heard at a distance. Accordingly we got
out upon the shore, leaving one of the singers in the gondola, while the
other went to the distance of some hundred paces. They now began to sing
against one another; and I kept walking up and down between them both,
so as always to leave him who was to begin his part. I frequently stood
still, and hearkened to the one and to the other.
Here the scene was properly introduced. The strong declamatory, and, as
it were, shrieking sound, met the ear from far, and called forth the
attention; the quickly succeeding transitions, which necessarily
required to be sung in a lower tone, seemed like plaintive strains
succeeding the vociferations of emotion or of pain. The other, who
listened attentively, immediately began where the former left off,
answering him in milder or more vehement notes, according as the purport
of the strophe required. The sleepy canals, the lofty buildings, the
splendour of the moon, the deep shadows of the few gondolas that moved
like spirits hither and thither, increased the striking peculiarity of
the scene, and amidst all these circumstances it was easy to confess the
character of this wonderful harmony.
It suits perfectly well with an idle solitary mariner, lying at length
in his vessel at rest on one of these canals, waiting for his company or
for a fare; the tiresomeness of which situation is somewhat alleviated
by the songs and poetical stories he has in memory. He often raises his
voice as loud as he can, which extends itself to a vast distance over
the tranquil mirror; and, as all is still around, he is as it were in a
solitude in the midst of a large and populous town. Here is no rattling
of carriages, no noise of foot passengers; a silent gondola glides now
and then by him, of which the splashing of the oars is scarcely to be
heard.
At a distance he hears another, perhaps utterly unknown to him. Melody
and verse immediately attach the two strangers; he becomes the
responsive echo to the former, and exerts himself to be heard as he had
heard the other. By a tacit convention they alternate verse for verse;
though the song should last the whole night through, they entertain,
themselves without fatigue; the hearers, who are passing between the
two, take part in the amusement.
This vocal performance sounds best at a great distance, and is then
inexpressibly charming, as it only fulfils its design in the sentiment
of remoteness. It is plaintive, but not dismal in its sound; and at
times it is scarcely possible to refrain from tears. My companion, who
otherwise was not a very delicately organised person, said quite
unexpectedly, "E singolare come quel canto intenerisce, e molto più
quando la cantano meglio."
I was told that the women of Lido, the long row of islands that divides
the Adriatic from the Lagouns, particularly the women of the extreme
districts of Malamocca and Palestrina, sing in like manner the works of
Tasso to these and similar tunes.
They have the custom, when their husbands are fishing out at sea, to sit
along the shore in the evenings and vociferate these songs, and continue
to do so with great violence, till each of them can distinguish the
responses of her own husband at a distance.
How much more delightful and more appropriate does this song show itself
here, than the call of a solitary person uttered far and wide, till
another equally disposed shall hear and answer him! It is the expression
of a vehement and hearty longing, which yet is every moment nearer to
the happiness of satisfaction.
Lord Byron has told us that with the independence of Venice the song of
the gondolier has died away--
In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more.
If this be not more poetical than true, it must have occurred at a
moment when their last political change may have occasioned this silence
on the waters. My servant _Tita_, who was formerly the servant of his
lordship, and whose name has been immortalised in the "Italy" of Mr.
Rogers, was himself a gondolier. He assures me that every night on the
river the chant may be heard. Many who cannot even read have acquired
the whole of Tasso, and some chant the stanzas of Ariosto. It is a sort
of poetical challenge, and he who cannot take up the subject by
continuing it is held as vanquished, and which occasions him no slight
vexation. In a note in Lord Byron's works, this article is quoted by
mistake as written by me, though I had mentioned it as the contribution
of a stranger. We find by that note that there are two kinds of Tasso;
the original, and another called the "_Canta alla Barcarola_," a
spurious Tasso in the Venetian dialect: this latter, however, is rarely
used. In the same note, a printer's error has been perpetuated through
all the editions of Byron; the name of _Barry_, the painter, has been
printed _Berry_.